[Comparision of costs of secondary prevention and treatment of stroke--cost-effectiveness analysis].

UNLABELLED Cerebrovascular accident (CVA) is a serious complication of untreated arterial hypertension. INTRODUCTION The aim of this paper is to compare the cost of secondary prevention and treatment of CVA caused by untreated arterial hypertension. METHODS Cost-effectiveness analysis of diagnosis and therapy of arterial hypertension in comparison with CVA treatment. RESULTS The cost of secondary prevention of CVA per patient per year in 2006. was 1.589,19 kunas, which comes to 15.107,75 kunas in thirty years of treatment (discount factor included), whereas a single CVA treatment was 17.207,54 kunas on average. In every 850 treatments of hypertension (NNT) comes a prevented CVA which is 1.350.811,5 kunas, and is therefore more expensive than a single CVA treatment. CONCLUSION Secondary prevention has a long-term protective effect improving the patients' quality of life, inhibiting the potential post-CVA handicap and pre-retirement. Thus, the main advantage of both primary and secondary prevention is in their greater benefit for patients.